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E 671 
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Copy I [Hepruttrd front the IXTEHNATIOXAZ REVIEW for May-Junc, 1S77.] 

THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 

KV 

THE HON. JOHN J A V, 

Late Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at 

Vienna. 



IVT EARLY fifty years since, before the Union included Texas, 
-i- y New Mexico, or California, and when its population numbered 
but ten millions, on the 22d of February, 1822, Mr. Webster de- 
livered at the National Capitol a speech in honor of the Centennial 
birthday of Washington. 

" Gentlemen," he said, " for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of 
the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their 
weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture its repetition ? 
If this £^1 fiat Western sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain 
shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted ? What other orb shall emit a ray to 
glimmer even on the darkness of the world ?" 

There was no danger, he added, in our overrating or overstating 
the important part which we were then acting in human affairs. 
The world was regarding us with a deep anxiety to learn whether 
free States might be stable as well as free, whether popular power 
might be trusted as well as feared ; in short, whether regular and 
virtuous self-government was a vision for the contemplation of the- 
orists, or a truth established and brought into practice in the coun- 
try of Washington. As to our stability, the integrity of the 
national territory, and the supremacy of the national power, the 
world has not doubted since our civil war. But as regards 
the wisdom and virtue of our self-government, Americans them- 
selves have doubted much, and Europe awaits on this point 
more satisfactory evidence than has been recently furnished. It is 
not the interest of imperial, aristocratic, and military governments 
to magnify the blessing and the permanence of popular institutions, 
nor to encourage their subjects in emigrating to our shores ; and the 
European press, as inspired by or controlled in the ruling interest, 
seldom brightens with rosy tints its narrative of current events in 
America. It is apt, on the contrary, to present with unamiable 
fidelity and in sombre hues the less pleasing features of American 
life, political and social, especially when they are supposed to illus- 
trate the character and influence of republican institutions. 

Of late years Europe has been made familiar with the Southern 
cry of abuses and exactions on the part of the governments im- 

CoPYRiGHT, 1877, A. S. Barnes & Co. 






THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE 



posed upon the vanquished States, with the mercenary aims and 
arbitrary methods of revenue officers, with flagrant departures from 
economy and justice at the door of Congress, wifh the disclosures of 
the Credit Mobilicr, involving the characters of senators and repre- 
sentatives, which were followed by the act of legislation known as 
" the Salary Grab." Eui'ope was advised of Sanborn contracts and 
moiety spoils, of the whisky frauds in the Western States, of the 
resolution and skill with which Mr. Secretary Bristow unearthed 
and grappled with that daring combination to defraud the Treasury, 
and of the treatment awarded to that faithful officer for the efforts 
to purify his Department. Europe was advised also of the at- 
tempted impeachment of the Secretary of War for official corrup- 
tion, in selling the traderships of our Western forts for moneys that 
were to be extorted in turn from the soldiers, Indians, and pioneers, 
whom the President and the War Secretary were bound especially 
to protect. 

; It has been intimated abroad that our republican Government 
had become more personal in its character, and more arbitrary in 
its disregard of national traditions, than any Government in 
Europe ; that the President had deliberately set aside the rules 
of the civil service, to which he was pledged, to readopt the 
immoral doctrine, " that to the victor belongs the spoils," and 
that he had acquiesced in the claim of senators and representa- 
tives to share in their distribution ; that in this course he was 
sustained by the interested flattery of those around him who 
were more careful than Mr. Bristow to maintain their positions ; 
that his Cabinet ministers, regardless of all remonstrances against 
lowering the tone of the Government, joined the President in asso- 
ciating with public plunderers, " loaded with odium and riches." 
In fact, it was widely suggested that the dignity, rights, and interest 
of the people were scarcely more regarded at Washington, in the 
distribution of offices and influence, than they were by the 
sovereigns of the olden time, who bestowed cities or provinces as 
marriage portions, and gave titles to the boon companions in 
whose society the king amused himself. Of the actual condition of 
our civil service, and of the class of men occasionally selected for 
the highest posts, Europe learned something on her own soil at ihc 
Vienna Exposition. 

A rare opportunity had presented itself tor calling to the 
front our representatives of the science, art, industr\-, and cul- 
ture of the country, and intrusting the task of a fitting exhibi- 
tion from America to eminent and experienced gentlemen, whose 



THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 3 

names would inspire respect and confidence. The idea would 
hardly have occurred to Europeans accustomed to watch with 
wonder the majestic march of the republic, that when the dignity 
ind honor of the country were at stake, with its scientific fame, its 
commercial interests, and the obligations of international courtesy, 
so promptly recognized by the great powers in sending their crown- 
princes and men illustrious in their several walks to do honor to 
the Emperor of Austria and the august occasion, the Washington 
Government could regard it as a convenient chance for satisfying 
disappointed and exacting partisans : or that it could descend 
so far for that purpose, that the management of the Commission 
should fall into the hands of men who would use the occasion 
for a job, and grant concessions with an eye to profit. The 
Commission, however, which the President did appoint was 
suspended by his order at Vienna for " irregularities" committed 
by those who controlled the management. The suspension 
was ordered as the Exposition was about to open, and the 
assembled nationalities, who were waiting to welcome American 
representatives of the highest culture, were neither blind nor indif- 
ferent to the incident, which in some degree concerned them all, 
and which the indifference of the American Government to the 
respectability of its agents had allowed to mar the Imperial pro- 
gramme. For a time the Government, startled by the disgrace, rose 
to an appreciation of its duty, and the spirited tone of its instructions 
and volunteered pledges contrasted strangely with its subsequent 
conduct, when the danger was passed and its assurances forgotten. 
On the 2 1st of April it had telegraphed, " The Commission must be 
free from taint. Your action in suspending any suspected party will 
be sustained, no matter what may be his position. The honor of 
the country requires thorough examination and decided action," 
All that skill, tact, and perseverance could do to redeem the honor 
of the Government and the interest of the exhibitors was well and 
promptly done by three well-known gentlemen, Colonel Le Grand 
B. Cannon, Mr. Theodore Roosevelt of New York, and Mr. C. F. 
Spang of Pittsburg, who without regard to personal convenience 
placed themselves at the disposal of the President as temporary 
Commissioners. Within a fortnight they established system and 
order where all had been chaos : for, as their report showed, the 
suspended Commissioners had no plans, no records, no accounts. 
Colonel Cannon and his associates, by their character and bearing, 
immediately commanded the confidence and regard of the Im- 



4 THE AMERICAN FOREIGN S E R \' I C E . 

perial and foreign Commissioners. But the erections in the Prater 
by the v^enders of American drinks, whose quarrels and revelations 
had scandalized the City of the Kaiser, continued to recall the 
official corruption which had multiplied their number ; and 
the attempt under cover of our flag to defraud the Austrian 
customs of duties on private goods improperly shipped by the 
Government vessels, was succeeded by an attempt of the first 
assistant to appropriate moneys of the United States. A want 
of perception of the simplest proprieties has been sometimes 
remarked in our foreign agents, as in the story told of an American 
envoy, who accepted a box at the opera from the Premier, and 
filled it with his domestics. The Government at Washington 
seemed equally unconscious of the discourtesy shown by unfit 
appointments to the Austrian Government, the International Com- 
missioners, and to the world assembled at Vienna. 

Xor did the Cabinet appear to appreciate the effect of the pro- 
cedure upon our national reputation, even after an official investi- 
gation had exhibited the taking of moneys from the grantees of 
bars and restaurants, and other " irregularities" which were admit- 
ted and defended by the Chief Commissioner. The President, 
yielding to complaints and solicitations, rewarded his management 
by a new appointment as Consul-General. 

This was represented, not unreasonably, as a virtual announce- 
ment to Europe that the President, abandoning the ground taken in 
his order of suspension, now regarded the management of the Chief 
of the Commission as consistent with the standard adopted at 
Washington of official fitness and international courtesy. 

Whatever the motive which induced the Government to make the 
objectionable appointments, or to reward at the close the Commis- 
sioner whose theories and practices had been compromising and disas- 
trous, few stronger illustrations could be found of the demoralizing in- 
fluences which flow from a disregard of the principle of fitness in for- 
eio-n appointments. It would seem, too, that the Government had 
resorted to unusual measures to divert the attention of the country 
from an incident which the new appointment of the Commissioner 
had recalled to the recollection of the world. The abstract of the 
correspondence and report called for and submitted to the Senate 
was curious alike in its omissions of evidence, its perversion of the 
report, and its pretended charge against Colonel Cannon and his asso- 
ciates, a charge formulated and published by the State Department, 
of being interested in sewing-machines. The Department, when 



THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 5 

called upon to publish the truth, declined, with the remiirk that 
"the whole subject was painful to the President." This apology, 
echoing the imperial maxim, the sovereign's pleasure is the high- 
est law, teaches its own lesson. No incident, perhaps, of the last 
Administration could throw more light on the character of its 
policy in the matter of appointments, its treatment of ofTficial 
incapacity and corruption, and its idea of loyalty to faithful agents, 
than the scandal at Vienna. 

It was followed by the reappearance, in the War Department at 
Washington, of the same habit of taking moneys from the grantees 
of concessions which the commissioner of the State Department 
had illustrated and defended at the Austrian capital, and which the 
Government by its action had seemed to sanction and reward. 

When General Grant addressed to Congress his last annual 
message at the close of our Centennial year, the Presidential ques- 
tion was still unsettled, and it seemed not improbable that the great 
party which had intrusted to his keeping the honor of the republic 
had been helplessly wrecked by the errors of his Administration. 
General Grant had been elected in 1868 by 214 electoral votes 
against 71 cast for Governor Seymour; and in 1876 that large major- 
ity had vanished, and the fate of the party hung upon a single vote. 
There is something in the reflections of the retiring President, 
as he reviewed and moralized upon his work, and strove to show 
that the blame was not all his own, which recalls the picture of 
Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage. " It was my fortune 
or misfortune," pleaded the President in a tone of apology and ex- 
cuse, which the world could hardly have expected from the victor 
of Vicksburg and Appomattox, " to be called to the ofifice of Chief 
Executive without any previous political training. . . . Under such 
circumstances it is but reasonable to suppose that errors of judg- 
ment must have occurred, mistakes have been made, as all can see, 
and I admit. . . . But I leave comparisons to history, claimino- 
only that failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent." 

The American people, generous to a fault, and never forgetful of 
military services, will listen to every plea in mitigation offered by 
the great General, whom, as he plaintively reminds them, they had 
transferred from the head of the army to the chair of state, with 
only the training of a soldier to meet the highest responsibilities of 
a statesman. But the fact remains, that " mistakes were made," 
and that the Republican party was brought to the very brink of ruin. 
General Grant's apology, that the mistakes were chiefly due to 



6 THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SER\^ICE. 

appointments being made upon recommendations of the representa- 
tives chosen directly by the people, goes to confirm the reform 
policy of President Hayes. But the moral responsibility that 
rested upon the advasers of General Grant in and out of the 
Cabinet can not be denied ; and his own language seems to indi- 
cate that they had left him in ignorance of constitutional prin- 
ciples and of historic traditions ; of the fact that the power of 
removal from of^ce is a constructive power, not granted by the Con- 
stitution, but introduced to meet cases of extreme necessity ; and 
that Mr. Madison had said that if a President should resort to that 
power when not required by any public exigency, and merely for 
personal objects, he would deserve to be impeached. 

General Grant alluded to Washington, and appealed to history, 
seemingly unconscious of the facts recalled by Mr. Eaton, that 
Washington removed but nine persons (except for one cause) ; John 
Adams but nine, and not one on account of opinion ; Jefferson but 
thirty-nine ; Madison only five ; Monroe, nine ; and J. Q. Adams, 
two. It was not till the time of Jackson that there commenced a 
system of political proscription and appointment for partisan 
service, or for personal fealty to party leaders — a system which 
Webster denounced. " Sir," he said, and w^e know the extent 
to which the prediction has been recently verified, " if this course 
of things can not be checked, good men will grow tired of the exer- 
cise of political privileges. They will have nothing to do with pop- 
ular elections. They will see that such elections are but a mere 
selfish scramble for office, and they will abandon the Government 
to the scramble of the bold, the daring, and the desperate." 

Among the noticeable acts of General Grant bearing upon our 
foreign policy, was one that seemed to imply a strange forgetfulness 
of Mr. Monroe's declaration made in 1823, touching foreign inter- 
vention in this hemisphere, a declaration that accorded perfectly 
with the maxims bequeathed to us by Washington. The country 
held with Mr. Webster, that it was " wise, prudent, and patriotic," 
and the spirit of that declaration lives to-day in the national senti- 
ment. 

Recognizing the important differences between the political sys- 
tems of Europe and America, we take no part in the wars of Europe 
in matters relating to themselves, and we expect a similar reserve 
on their part in regard to affairs in this hemisphere, with which we 
arc immediatch' connected. 



THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. J 

Mr. Webster in his speech on the Panama Mission in 1826 said : 

" This declaration of Mr. Monroe did great honor to the principle and spirit of 
the Government. It can not be taken back, retracted, or annulled without disgrace. 
It met, sir, with the entire concurrence and hearty approbation of the country. I 
look on the message of December, 1823, as forming a bright page in our history. 
I will help neither to erase it nor tear it out ; nor shall it be by any act of mine 
blurred or blotted. It did honor to the sagacity of the Government, and I will not 
diminish that honor. It elevated the hopes and satisfied the patriotism of the 
people. Over those hopes I will not bring a mildew, nor will I put that gratified 
patriotism to shame." — Webster s Works, iii., pp. 203, 204-5. 

Unfortunately, President Grant and his Cabinet do not seem to 
have shared Mr. Webster's scruples. On the 21st of January, 1876, 
the President submitted to Congress some correspondence about 
Cuba, including an elaborate letter from Mr. Fish to Mr. Cushing 
(No. 266, Nov. 5th, 1875), in which Mr. Cushing was told that the 
President " feels that the time is at hand when it may become the 
duty of other Governments to interfere solely with a view of bring- 
ing to an end a disastrous conflict, and of restoring peace on the 
Island of Cuba." 

General Grant, during the civil war, occupied as he was in the 
field, had perhaps hardly understood or appreciated the indig- 
nation awakened in the country at the threat of foreign inter- 
meddling in our affairs. The tone of the instructions to Mr. 
Cushing justifying the intervention of the Great Powers in the diffi- 
culty between Spain and her colony, renders it improbable that the 
Cabinet had recalled to the attention of the President the language 
of Mr. Seward, when it was known that Louis Napoleon, on similar 
grounds, was endeavoring to persuade England to a similar step, 
for ending the conflict and restoring peace between the United 
States and the Southern Confederacy. 

In furtherance of the scheme of intervention suggested in the 
letter to Mr. Cushing, a copy of the letter was on the 5th of 
November addressed to General Schenck at London, with an 
instruction to communicate its conclusions to Lord Derby. It was 
announced from Washington that " similar letters were addressed 
to the United States Ministers at Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, 
Vienna, and Rome ; and instructions given to ask in effect the 
moral support of the Governments to which they were accredited." 

The correspondence contained no responses from any of the 
representatives to whom the instructions were sent to be read to 
their respective Governments ; and it is believed that those 
responses have never been laid before the country. 



8 THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 

The Journal dc St. Pc t cr sbcnir g '^xoh'dkAy expressed the sentiments 
of the Russian Government when it remarked, " European inter- 
ference in the present state of the Cuban affair is unnecessary. . . . 
Europe is not interested. . . ." 

It was remarked at home that " an apphcation from Prince 
Gortschakoff for the aid of our Government in adjusting the differ- 
ences in Herzegovina would not be a whit more grotesque than such 
an application to Russia to interfere for the pacification of Cuba." 

Statistics were presently published, showing that our commerce 
with Cuba had of late increased instead of declining, and that 
America felt as little interest as Europe in the proposed interven- 
tion. The scheme quietly passed, but certain questions raised by 
this extraordinary procedure remain unanswered. 

Why, it was asked, should the President, when our trade with 
Cuba was increasing, and when the country was entirely calm, 
inaugurate, without the advice of Congress, a scheme so offensive 
to a proud people and so likely to eventuate in war? 

Why did he address to Spain, as justifying foreign intervention 
in her struggle with her colony, reasons which we denounced and 
resented when they were urged to sustain the pretended right of 
European Powers to intervene in our quarrel with the revolted 
States? 

Why, if the President really believed that it was the right and 
the duty of the American people, for the protection of their 
citizens and their commerce, to secure the peace of Cuba and 
to prevent its interruption by Spain, did he not submit the matter 
to Congress for its decision, instead of soliciting the moral support 
of the European Powers ? And what plea or apology could the 
Cabinet offer for inviting those Governments, from London to 
Vienna, and from St. Petersburg to Rome, to interest themselves 
in an American question, and to consider the expediency of their 
intervening to decide the destiny of a Spanish colony in the 
Western World ? 

The grave inconveniences that may arise from the withholding 
of correspondence and information of national interest have been 
more than once illustrated during the term of General Grant. 

The Department issues yearly one or two volumes of selected 
correspondence on our " Foreign Relations." But correspondence 
has often been withheld which the country should ha\'c had at the 
earliest moment. The right assumed and exercised in the Vienna 
case, to withhold correspondence and reports disclosing official 



THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 

;^ irregularities," and thus to suppress and misrepresent the truth 
m cases where loyalty to its agents demanded that it should be 
known, and the assumed right to do this on the ground that the 
matter was painful to the President, is a right which, if acknowl- 
edged and permitted, would allow a government to falsify as in 
that case, the facts of history. 

" Political history," says Sir George Cornewall Lewis in his 
learned treatise on the Method of Observing and Reasoning in 
Politics, IS a register of political facts;" and in support of this 
definition he quotes Vossius, Creuzer, and M. Dannon, who says 
that the facts comprehend, in the first place, the designs, project 
or enterprise; then the action or progression, with their attendant 
circunnstances; and, in the third place, the event or consequences 
with distinction between that which is fortuitous and that which 
proceeds from a known cause." 

If history is philosophy teaching by example, then the lesson 
taught by an event may be lost if incidents essential to the story 
have^been misrepresented or concealed. The causes that led to 
the irregularities ' at Vienna, should be known, that they may 
hereafter be avoided. ^ ^ 

The pronounced success of the Centennial Exhibition gives 
increased mterest to the announcement that President Hayes and 
Mr Evarts warmly favor the fitting representation of the United 
States at the approaching Exhibition at Paris. The country will 
expect this time a triumph and not a scandal, and this will depend 
upon the appointees and the rules given to them. We mi<.ht 
expect something in the way of bad manners, were the State De- 
partment to give commissions to men such as some of those selected 
for Vienna, of whom the Chief Commissioner testified • " I have 
repeatedly stated to different Assistant Commissioner^ when I 
appointed them, that I held in my hand the power of suspension, 
which I should not fail to exercise at Vienna if I had good reason 
to beheve them guilty of any impropriety." A good deal, too, 
might be anticipated in the way of immoral theories and cor- 
rupt practices, should the Chief Commissioner to Paris advise his 
assistants that to borrow from the grantee of a pri^-ilege was "a 
purely commercial transaction, like borrowing from a bank or any 
mdividua ; and if it were known in advance that a management 
conducted on this principle of concessions on the one side and 
loans and percentages on the other, would be sanctioned, approved 
and rewarded at Washington. 

General Grant could hardly have appreciated the demoralizing 



lO THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 

influence exerted by the attempt to cover up the Vienna irregu- 
larities, and to divert pubHc attention from the actual facts ; and 
it is to be hoped that it was not by his order that all previous mis- 
representations of the matter, especially those contained in the 
abstract furnished to the Senate, and in part given to the world, 
have been eclipsed in their disregard of historic truth by an 
ofificial statement contained in the " Reports of the Commissioners 
of the United States to the International Exhibition, held at 
Vienna, 1873. Published under the direction of the Secretary of 
State, by the authority of Congress," etc. Wasliington, 1876. 
4 vols. 8vo. 

Under the head of " United States Commissioners to the Inter- 
national Exposition," vol. i., p. 156, is this note : "Thomas B. Van 
Buren was appointed Commissioner June loth, 1872, and served as 
Chief of the Commission until May loth, 1873; he was succeeded 
by Jackson S. Schultz, who served until July 5th, 1873." There is 
no mention of the Temporary Commission, and if this note were 
true, there could have been no break for a Temporary Commis- 
sion to fill, since it is distinctly said that Mr. Van Buren served as 
Chief of the Commission until May loth, and that he was suc- 
ceeded by Mr. Schultz. But this statement is inexact. Mr. Van 
Buren was suspended from his ofifice on the 24th of April, and was 
succeeded by the " Temporary Commission," who were on the same 
day invested by the President " with all the Powers heretofore 
vested in General Van Buren." What the "Temporary Commis- 
sion," who are thus summarily ignoied in the official report, accom- 
plished under unparalleled difficulties will appear by the report of 
Colonel Cannon on the 14th of May, and the official correspond- 
ence, which, although called for by the House of Representatives 
on the 20th of March, 1876, have not yet been brought to light. 

The easy morality which, in an official record, consents to tam- 
per with historic truth, seems to inspire a mistrust more frank 
than courteous, and the printed correspondence on the Catacazy 
affair contains a telegram which was reported to have elicited from 
the Emperor Alexander the exclamation, "Do they doubt my 
word?" Mr. Curlin, in September, 1872, when the President had 
requested the recall of Mr. Catacazy, had telegraphed: "The Em- 
peror requests the President to tolerate the presence of Mr. Cata- 
cazy until after the visit of the Grand Duke, and tlioi he will be 
recalled^ The Department replied: "The President has decided 
to tolerate tlie present minister until after the \isit of the Prince. 
That i)ii)iistcr ivill then be distnissed, if not reealled." 



^T H E AMERICAN F O R E I Ci N SERVICE. II 

It is the more desirable that the Commission to be appointed 
to France shall be composed of eminent gentlemen, bent upon the 
advancement of our highest interests, for the reason that as re- 
gards foreign Powers the past Administration contributed as little 
to the success of the Exhibition at Philadelphia as it had done to 
that of Vienna. When Congress enacted that our Centennial 
should be celebrated, under its auspices, by an International Ex- 
hibition, it intrusted to the President the task of securing the co- 
operation of foreign Powers. The world was invited by proclama- 
tions and diplomatic notes, and was advised that no exhibitors 
would be received unless their respective governments should 
accept the invitation, and appoint Cofnmissions. The proclama- 
tion was cordially received ; the nations hastened to respond ; and 
Prince Bismarck replied, " The German Empire accepts with sin- 
cerest thanks the invitation of the Government of the United 
States." 

Soon came an unlooked-for change in the readiness of foreign 
Governments and manufacturers to assist at the Exhibition, and a 
coolness and distrust succeeded the cordiality with which it had 
been welcomed. Among the Powers which were understood to 
have declined to come was Russia ; and the question was asked 
through the press if her refusal could be connected with the treat- 
ment of Alexis. To this, Governor Jewell, at that time a member 
of the Cabinet, promptly responded, and disclosed the fact that, 
after the first invitation had been given, and when it had been 
already accepted by some Powers, a new instruction to our 
ministers that the Powers were not invited by our Government, 
put a different face upon the matter. He had accordingly advised 
the Court at St. Petersburg that "while the United States urged 
other nations to attend and contribute to our Exhibition, our 
Government was not responsible for it, and that it was not a 
national affair. . . . He was told in reply that under no circum- 
stance could Russia accept such an invitation from private persons 
or a private corporation. Governor Jewell explained that the auto- 
cracy of Russia can hardly understand how our Government can ask 
them to accept such an invitation." Congress, on learning of this 
curious overture, was able in part to avert its consequences by 
passing a new act, directing an invitation in the name of the 
Government ; and at the last hour Russia came with an admirable 
exposition, whose beauty and completeness showed her progress in 
art and the taste and skill of her Commission. 



12 THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 

As the rule touching governmental acceptance of foreign invita- 
tions, referred to at St. Petersburg, is recognized by all Govern- 
ments including our own, the President might properly have 
advised the country of the grounds on which he denied a national 
character to the Centennial Commission, while he still urged the 
Great Powers to accept its invitation as that of a private body, 
whose claim to a national character the American Government 
declined to recognize. 

That the President really regarded the Centennial celebration 
as a private affair, seemed to be shown by his " regrettable absence," 
as Vice-President Ferry expressed it, on the Centennial Fourth 
of July, when Mr. Evarts delivered his memorable oration. As 
our Government, through the President himself, had invited all 
Governments and peoples to assist at that historic commemoration, 
in whose honor came the Emperor of Brazil and the diplomatic 
representatives of foreign states, magnanimously led by the accom- 
plished Minister of Great Britain, the term applied by Mr. Ferry to 
the absence of the President mildly expressed the feeling occasioned 
by the non-presence of the head of the republic. 

The settlement of the long-pending Alabama question by inter- 
national arbitration will be regarded as the chief diplomatic 
achievement of the late Administration. Time, it may be hoped, 
will soften the regret, which in England has not yet faded into 
forgetfulness, that the pleasant feeling — so happily restored by the 
coming hither of the distinguished gentlemen of the English Com- 
mission, by the apology frankly tendered by the proudest Govern- 
ment of Christendom, and by the harmonious conclusion of the 
Treaty of Washington — should have been interrupted b)^ the cpics- 
tions raised on the American case presenting for adjudication the 
indirect claims. 

In view of the position ncnv held by Mr. Evarts, who led our able 
counsel at Geneva, it ma)' not be improper to state, although the 
remark is made without his knowledge, that the responsibilil}' of 
the presentment of those claims did not rest with that gentleman. 
Looking back at the determination reached b\' I\ngland to with- 
draw from tile arbitration I'ather than consent to the sulmiission of 
those claims, it is clear tliat the\- would lia\e pt-rileil the treaty 
itself, but for the action of the tiihunal, which announced 1)\- its 
president, at their opening session, tliat in their judgment the 
indirect claims were excluded from consideration. 



THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. I3 

It is too soon to judge of the Administration of General Grant 
with the impartiality of history, but it is not too soon to note for 
avoidance in the future the mistakes to which he has alluded. 

The recent correspondence with Great Britain on the subject of 
extradition has two noticeable points : one, the unusual manner of 
the President's announcement of the question of construction raised 
by England ; the other, the extent to which the doctrine put forth 
at Washington imperils the liberties of foreigners who come hither 
to escape political, religious, or military persecution. The President 
in his message to Congress referred to the action of England in 
asking a prior assurance that Winslow should not be tried for any 
offense but that for which he was demanded, as " the menace of 
an intended violation or refusal to execute the terms of an existing 
treaty," and gave Congress to understand that the British Govern- 
ment had based its refusal and demand " on the requirements of a 
purely domestic enactment of the British Parliament passed in the 
year 1870." 

The President in making this statement omitted to advise Con- 
gress that Lord Derby had virtually disclaimed for Great Britain 
the grounds thus imputed to her, and had maintained that her 
right to protest against any extradited person being tried for other 
offenses existed without the Act of Parliament, under the general 
law and the general opinion of European nations, of which the Act 
of Parliament was declaratory. In view of the frankness and ex- 
plicitness of Lord Derby's disclaimer, the announcement to the 
American people that England menaced us with a violation of a 
treaty, because she declined to adopt General Grant's view of the 
law of extradition, in opposition to the international law of the 
Continent ; and the further announcement that she rested her men- 
ace on a domestic act of her own Parliament, seem open to criti- 
cism. Lord Clarendon remarked " that the one special art required 
in diplomacy is to be perfectly honest, truthful, and straightforward ;" 
and when the national honor is at stake, it is safe to avoid the slight- 
est deviation from an honorable frankness, and to remember with 
Burke that "A great empire and little minds go ill together." The 
second point touches the rule itself, and as General Grant had al- 
ready recognized the reasonableness of the rule contended for by 
England, and had consented to its incorporation in a new treaty, the 
rule being in fact of even more importance to America than to Eng- 
land, it is not apparent why the impossibility of our giving the 
assurance asked for by England, from the want of power in the 
Executive, was not promptly adjusted by a new treaty or an addi- 



14 THE AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE. 

tional article. The rule was laid down at Washington (Foreign 
Relations for 1876, page 215), that under the Treaty of 1842 "there 
is no agreement expressed or implied that he [the person sur- 
rendered] may not be also tried for another offense of which he is 
charged, although not an extradition offense. He is in fact 
delivered up to justice, and, in the absence of any limitation by 
treaty, to justice generally; each independent state being the judge 
of its own administration of justice." 

This rule, while perhaps practically harmless as regards England, 
seems to recognize as belonging to Continental and other gov- 
ernments a power to deal with surrendered persons for other than 
extradition offenses ; and that is a power from which they are at 
present debarred by the international law of Europe, which, as de- 
clared by Foelix, Dallay, Kluit, and Heffter, and as expounded by 
the Lord Chancellor of England, forbids a person who has been 
surrendered on one charge from being tried upon another. The 
new rule, if allowed to stand, will overthrow the assurance conveyed 
by the language of Mr. Webster, that the treaty confined to 
offenses which all mankind regard as heinous would endanger no 
man's liberty on account of " political or criminal charges arising 
from wars or intestine commotions, treason, misprision of treason, 
libels, desertion from military service, and other offenses of a 
similar character." 

The European press are already conscious of the fact that with 
President Hayes and his Cabinet comes a policy of civil service in- 
spired by the conviction that the government of a nation — the 
grandest combination of human forces — should not be perverted to 
partisan and private ends. Under our recent system, as thoughtful 
American travelers have been unpleasantly reminded, the states- 
men and the press of Europe have pointed to the republic as tend- 
ing downwards ; and an English writer, eulogizing the civil service 
of England, and illustrating it by contrast, says, " It has ne\'cr been 
servile, like that of Russia. It has never been bureaucratic, like that 
of France. It has never been corrupt, like ihat of America." The 
question asked by those who hope for civil ef )rm is, whether it is 
to be a permanent reality, or simply a fleeting vision that will fade 
before the assaults of skillful politicians and the indifference of an 
apathetic people. The suggestion of a civil service which shall 
seek throughout the country for men of character and culture, and 
confer the national appointments on the ground of merit and fitness, 
will l)c- ranked by man\' with the iinp(>ssil)]e x'isioiis with which 



THE AMERICAN FOREIGN S E R \M C E . 1 5 

speculative philosophers and amiable enthusiasts have for ages at- 
tempted to amuse and ameliorate the world. Astute political leaders, 
who work by primaries and caucuses and wire-pulling and conven- 
tions, accustomed to appropriate and distribute, as the spoils of vic- 
tory, appointments in the home and foreign service, may naturally 
regard the proposed reform as a personal wrong, and a scheme 
alike fanciful and impossible. They may rank it with the fables of 
the past, with the reign of Saturn, and the Golden Age, the Islands of 
the Blessed, the Perfect State of Plato, the Utopia of Sir Thomas 
More, the Oceana of Harrington, Fenelon's Happy Land of 
Bastica, the Happy Valley of Rasselas, the Republic of Philoso- 
phers (attributed to Fontenelle), the Subterranean World of Nicholas 
Klinius, or the Coming Age of Bulwer Lytton. They may ridicule 
it as a chapter of political romance, a story of the New^ Atlanta, 
possible only in an age of purer simplicity than the present, where 
the people are all to be virtuous and happy, free from luxury and 
ambition, dwelling in peace and plenty, with politics unnecessary 
and war unknown, and lawyers prohibited ; where they will have 
no use for money, and place no value on gold, silver, or precious 
stones; where the blessings of nature shall be all collected, and its 
evils all excluded. 

But with the solution before them of gigantic problems which 
seemed insoluble, the American people, not of one party alone, but 
the worthiest members of all parties in all sections of our common 
and reunited country, will be deterred neither by threats nor ridi- 
cule from demanding a return to the maxims and the example of 
Washington. No statesman who deserves the name will desire to 
defeat the reform, and the more acute Republican politicians, who 
had so nearly murdered the party, will have to face that fact, when- 
ever they seek a revival of a scheme fraught with ofTficial corrup- 
tion, national calamities, and governmental disgrace. The exter- 
mination of the spoils system, with its demoralizing influences, its 
" mistakes" and melancholy results, its postponement at home of 
national harmony and national prosperity, its loss so sensibly felt 
in our foreign service of national prestige, has become the question 
which confronts us as we enter our second century, and are told 
that the country can not stand a return to the rule and practice pre- 
scribed by the Constitution. " Our government," said Mr. Web- 
ster, " can stand trial, it can stand adversity ; it can stand any thing 
but the marring of its own beauty and the weakening of its own 
\ strength." 



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The general object of this Review is the able, impartial, and popular discussion of 
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